Blair Dick Escape

You've got to hand it to these people, haven't you? Clearly, the way to win promotion in the Met is to screw up royally, so if you want to head straight for the top, why not arrange for your officers to shoot an innocent man in the head - 7 times - on a tube train?

Though the guilty verdict against the Met in the De Menezes case is welcome, I can't understand why the jury felt the need to insert the rider that Cressida Dick was not personally culpable. I mean, was she in charge of the operation or not? Did she give four conflicting orders to the teams of gun-toting thugs at her disposal within a couple of minutes just prior to the shooting, or not?

Clearly, London's top bobby, Sir Ian Blair, views her handling of the job in an extremely favourable light, having recently promoted her to Deputy Assistant Commissioner, a post which is almost certainly considerably higher-powered than it sounds. But then, Sir Ian leads by example, doesn't he? The only man in the entire force not to know about the details of the shooting till the following day. What was he doing, sticking his head down the toilet and shouting "La la la la la! I'm not coming out. You can't make me! La la la la la!"?

Anyway, 'Cress' was previously promoted as a result of the work she did on Operation Trident, which as anyone will accept, has been a resounding success, what with the massive decline in gun crime we have seen.

So, Blair will not resign. He's going back to the Yard to get on with his job. Obviously, there's a lof of sticking your head in the toilet and shouting to be done. As well as wasting public money, promoting useless people and smearing the innocent dead. He has also (naturally) received the full support of Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown, the latter a Jedi master compared to Blair the young Skywalker in achieving promotion through blatant incompetence and cronyism.

Jean Charles de Menezes will not rest in peace. May the terrible tragedy of his death continue to dog the steps of those bastards responsible for it.

Man of Steel

A balanced view is something we seem to be sadly lacking in these days. The BBC prides itself on its neutrality, but we all know that in reality neutrality means 'consensus politics' or some crap like that.

They're like one of those people who don't engage in a (rational or otherwise) argument with you, but persist in telling you not to raise your voice - if you don't mind. I'm not going to discuss it with you if you start shouting. And then they somehow think they've won the argument, even though they haven't actually made any contribution to the debate whatsoever.

I would much rather have a stand-up row with someone who is saying something than be part of this polite middle England that everyone seems so worried about. So worried that they have to demonise the poor and frightened and pander to the Super Rich. Just in case this Worcester Woman (or whatever) gets upset about all the terrible behaviour and decides to vote Conservative. Where would we all be then? Deary me.

This is one of the reasons why I like the Independent, and why I especially like Mark Steel's weekly column. I can even forgive him for being a Palace fan, because he makes me laugh and is brave enough to talk sense in a national newspaper. Now that's something you don't see very often, isn't it?